Mrs. Teabody Springs Forward

Good Morning from a pinky-skyed Meadow Grounds Mountain where every clock inside Chez Teabody has been given notice that changes are coming. Mrs. Teabody is sipping a fragrant cup of "Pete and Irene" and enjoying its dense notes of chocolate infused with cardamom. Tonight is the night this little part of the world switches from Daylight Saving Time (DST) to  Eastern Standard Time (EST). Meaningless in this context of course. There is only one thing most folks want to know: "Do we turn the clocks back or turn them ahead?" And the very wise in the world sagely recite the mnemonic, "Fall backward, spring forward." This generates grim looks, clenched fist and jowl and the response appropriate to age and relationship, most of which Mrs. Teabody has no intention of sharing. A simple "WTH" suffices. For intents and purposes here, just before you fall into your bed tonight at 2:00 A.M., you will want to turn your clocks AHEAD to 3:00 A.M.. In other words, you will lose one hour of sleep and your microwave, cooking stove, bedside alarm, and dashboard clock will have you scurrying for owner's manuals. Changing all your clocks will take you about one hour so some of you may lose two hours of sleep.

You'd like to be done with this topic but Mrs. Teabody has a train to catch tomorrow morning, a train scheduled to depart at 7:30 A.M. If, instead, the scheduled departure time were 2:00 A.M. and she turned up at the station on the old time at 2:01 A.M., would the train  already be well on its way to Philadelphia? The mind reels. Mrs. Teabody has, of course, already  spoken with an Amtrak employee about this very matter and has been, unfortunately, disconnected. The Teabodys will be traveling the "new" time. Now that matter is sorted, Mrs. Teabody is going to do something uncharacteristically cruel. She is going to ask you, Gentle Reader, to open the following link and have your mind expanded about the kinds of  clock-changing shenanigans going on all over the world.  Mon Dieu!

http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/events.html

Who would have thought Uruguay would be of such single-mindedness? Who knew Uruguay was even SPELLED that way?

Now that the tedious  discussion of changing the clocks is at an end, Mrs. Teabody should like to share with you her newest passion for  chipping away at rocks, AKA sculpture.  Mrs. Teabody has signed up for an eight-week course with a skillful instructor and a convivial group of friends to learn about this most ancient means of artistic expression. Featured at the top of this page is a fine example of one who has learned the art of sculpting. What once was a block of jade has been skillfully rendered into a lovely elephant. Mrs. Teabody holds no illusions about her sculpting abilities. To illustrate she presents her preliminary  design attempts for your consideration:

There is, of course, no comparison between the finely-executed elephant and the figures in Mrs. Teabody's  little exhibit except that they all share three dimensions. Should that difference DAUNT or INSPIRE?  There is only one correct answer here, Gentle Reader. If there is ANYTHING you truly want to learn, you must choose to be a beginner. You must choose to wear the cloak of ineptitude through the struggle. You must get used to failure and you must learn to  take that failure, adjust your approach and try again. This time you hold your chisel just a little differently, you hammer with less force, you work more slowly and the result is different. Maybe not perfect. But maybe something closer to that image in your mind of how you want your "sculpture" to be.

What is it that you have always wanted to learn to do? What mode of expression have you begun but abandoned? As the days extend and you find yourself with more hours of daylight, what can you see yourself doing that will challenge you but at the same time give you a sense of accomplishment? Maybe you will pick up a guitar, sit down at your long-neglected piano, tear a sheet of paper from a notebook and begin to draw,  uncover your woodworking equipment, start looking at dress or quilt patterns or maybe just get into your child's toy box and find some play dough and start sculpting. Mrs. Teabody hopes you will  embrace being a beginner. It can be life changing.  Oh, and don't forget to change your clocks.